Chapter 1
Stephen strode up to the Sanctum doors. It wasn’t hard to pick it out - it was the cleanest building in the area, untouched by the dust and debris, unlike its neighbors. The doors swung open at a touch, and Stephen moved to the side to let Tony in first, getting a nod in return. The doors swung closed behind them, and Stephen started looking around.
“Tao? Master Drumm? Is anyone here?” The Sanctum was eerily quiet, raising Stephen’s hackles. He saw a spark out of the corner of his eye, and quickly threw up a shield to block the incoming attack. The offensive spell fizzled out against his superior barrier, but it still took Tony off guard. Since Master Drumm had been the one to attack Tony, Stephen quickly bound him with the Crimson Bands of Cyttorak. “Why are you trying to kill Iron Man?” Stephen demanded.
“He killed everyone! He killed my brother!” Drumm spat.
“What? But he- You said-” Stephen turned towards Tony.
Stephen knelt beside Tony. The rubble hurt his knees, but it was somewhat a relief - he had been running from universe to universe all day, and while the Cloak was helping where it could (some universes didn’t have magic being used openly yet), his feet were killing him. “What happened?” Stephen asked softly.
“The fucking government happened. They decided we weren’t doing a good enough job without even consulting us, even though we were so close to ending it all. They sent a nuke and the portal closed before I could redirect it. I know how I’m still alive, but how are you still alive?”
Stephen gave a wry smile. “Would you believe me if I said magic?”
“On top of aliens? Sure, why not.”
Tony sighed wearily. “I meant what I said, but I understand if you don’t believe me.”
“There’s a video of you flying the nuke in!” Drumm argued.
Stephen pinched the bridge of his nose. “Was he underneath the nuke or on top of the nuke?”
“Underneath?” Drumm’s eyebrow’s furrowed.
“Then, unless I have evidence otherwise, I’m going to believe Stark. It’s nothing against you, Drumm, but in my universe, they kept the portal open a little longer and Stark went underneath the nuke to push it up into the portal and saved everyone’s lives. So, I’m assuming he tried to do the same here, but failed due to a timing error.”
Drumm started struggling against the Bands once more. “No! My brother’s death couldn’t have been a timing error! How dare you!”
A light voice floated from behind him. “I’d suggest you release my Sanctum Master.”
Stephen turned to be face to face with the Ancient One.“Only if he promises not to attack again.”
“Ridiculous. Release him now.”
“If I don’t get a promise, then no.”
“That man is not welcome here, and as long as you continue to associate with him, neither are you!”
“So you won’t help rebuild the city?”
“We stay out of the affairs of men.”
Stephen recalled the Bands. “Fine then. Tony, let’s go. We’ll just fix this ourselves.” He floated out the door, glaring at the woman he thought he knew.
Stephen had estimated that with the full force of the Masters, bringing the radiation down to normal levels would have taken a few days at most. Instead, with only him, it took months. While Stephen was using his soul as a conduit to change the radiation into universal power (which Tony insisted sounded dangerous), Tony would rebuild the physical buildings and dig up the dead bodies. They started at the center, fixing up one house together so they could have someplace to sleep.
Or so Stephen thought. A noise woke him up, and the bed dipped, only to flatten once more.
“Tony?” Stephen rasped, rubbing at his eyes.
“Sorry, sorry, just getting up to use the bathroom. You can go back to sleep.”
Stephen cracked an eye open and took Tony in. “And the bathroom requires your suit, why?”
Caught in his lie, Tony ducked his head. “I can’t sleep. I should be doing more. I can do more. The faster I get the buildings done, the faster I can help you with your problem.”
Stephen sighed. “Tony, my universe will be fine for a bit longer. We have protocols figured out, people on lockdown. We can wait a few more months. You need to sleep.”
Tony bit his lip. “If. . . If I sleep, I’ll have more nightmares.”
“I can. . .” Stephen trailed off, raising his shaking fingers to Tony’s forehead. Tony had let Stephen ward him against nightmares before, but Tony didn’t enjoy the aftermath.
As Stephen predicted, Tony shook his head. “You know I don’t like how my head feels afterwards.”
“It’s called being well rested.” Stephen shot back with fond exasperation. Stephen settled back into the bed. He might be awake for the day now, but that didn’t mean he couldn’t astral project and get some radiation transferred that way. Then, Stephen shot back up. “That’s it!”
Tony made a confused noise. “What’s it?”
Stephen grinned. “Astral projection! At night, I can push your soul out of your body, and you can think of how to fix my universe’s problem while your body rests.”
Tony raised a sceptical eyebrow. “And that works?”
“‘Does it work’, he asks. Once I figured out how to astrally project, I didn’t stay in my body at night for months on end and I’d still go back to my body feeling well rested in the morning.”
Tony hesitated, then nodded, calling the suit off. Stephen pulled Tony into the bed and wrapped around him. A careful nudge against Tony’s third eye pushed them both out of their bodies. Tony’s spirit flailed, and he shouted. “How do you control these things!”
“Just imagine that you’re still.” Stephen chuckled. It took a couple tries, but Tony managed to settle down.
“Neat trick you’ve got there, Doc.” Tony grinned, and then immediately started fidgeting. His eyes glazed over, and Stephen could tell he had already started pondering. So, Stephen sank into his meditation pose and got to work as well.
Stepping into the universe felt like stepping into a painting - an incredibly depressing one, but a painting nonetheless. The last lights of a dying sunset illuminated rubble, nothing but dust and ash everywhere. As if to contrast the desolation, a red and gold armor stood staring up at the sky. Then, ever so slowly, the armor sank to its knees and gave out the most primal scream Stephen had ever heard. It wasn’t a simple scream of grief, but rather, the rage and pain of someone who had lost everything being given voice.
Stephen woke up with a repressed gasp. The area might have been fixed and cleaned weeks ago, but the images still haunted him. So much dust everywhere, and not a single sign of life for miles. Not a footprint, nor a body. Being a neurosurgeon had been a constant reminder of how strong the human body could be, with his patients recovering through brain injuries that a lesser surgeon wouldn’t have been able to save them from. Seeing the remains of buildings without people was a brutal reminder of just how fragile they could be too. It made it all the more important to fix the area so that they might have the slightest chance of fixing these people’s lives.
With that in mind, Stephen got out of bed and returned to work.
“I’m surprised you haven’t asked about the other version of yourself yet.” Stephen remarked.
“I’m surprised you haven’t asked about yours.” Tony shot back.
Stephen shrugged. “I figure he probably died. I was on ER duty during the invasion in my universe, so he probably died. Do you want to know about yourself?”
Tony scoffed. “Hard to be curious about the world when my world is dead. Everyone I know and love is gone.”
Stephen froze, at a loss for what to say. After a couple of minutes, he took a breath. “I chose to be a surgeon because it meant less interaction with conscious people. My bedside manner is lacking at best, and atrocious at worst. I might be saying the wrong thing but. . . I think you can recover from this loss. But not here. As you said, and as I saw with Drumm, there’s no one for you here, and everyone thinks you did this. The people I’ve healed of radiation poisoning thinks I’m a poor soul that you’ve manipulated into helping you boost your PR. There’s nothing for you here. But you’ve said you’re close to a breakthrough for my universe. You could move there, and be loved. You can start over, rebuild your world. Even if you say no now, it’s a standing offer. If you want, I can keep in contact.”
Tony didn’t say anything in return, but Stephen had the feeling that maybe, for once, he had said the right thing.
When Stephen went home, he felt confident in his work. They were onto the lightest of the damage, and likely only had a few days left. Relaying this to Tony seemed to cheer the other man up significantly.
Tony also had good news to share. “I think I’ve found the solution for your universe.”
Stephen burst into a grin and swept the other man into a hug. They both squeezed, then decided to celebrate. Stephen went out to get them food and drinks, and when he got back, they raced each other to the Statue of Liberty. It was closed that late at night, so they were able to have a nice picnic on the torch. The food was still nice and hot thanks to magic, and after the food was gone, they promptly got drunk.
“And then, after we finished rebuilding the professor’s car on the roof, he kissed me! I hadn’t seen it coming, but he was incredibly handsome, so I rolled with it.”
Stephen made an interested noise at Tony’s story. “I never realized you were also queer! Just guys, or guys and girls?”
“Oh, just about anybody pretty. You said ‘also’? What about you?”
Stephen laughed. “Oh, for a while I tried to deny it. Growing up in a heavily religious and conservative state really messed with my head. I was never really religious myself, but my parents were. Then I grew more okay with the idea of being queer and told myself if I settled down with a girl at the end, it would be fine, so I called myself bi for a while and really tried with my friend Christine. I couldn’t take it in the end and finally admitted I was gay, although I’ve never actually had a relationship with a man before. I know I’d like to have one though.”
He looked over at Tony, and, not for the first time, appreciated how beautiful he was. For the first time, however, he entertained the thought that maybe one day, Tony would like him back.
Maybe one day.
“We’re not about to create a multiversal paradox, right?” Tony said, attempting to poke Stephen’s portal.
Stephen grabbed his hand. “I get the feeling that you like your hands, so don’t touch the edges of the portal. What do you mean, a multiversal paradox?”
“You know, like if I run into my counterpart in this universe?”
“Oh, that’s easy. You’re dead.”
Tony coughed. “I’m sorry, what?”
“The reason I needed to hop universes to fix my universe in the first place is because all of the big tech geeks are dead. Basically, when. . . whoever it was. . . released the internet chips, none of the tech people trusted it, and neither did any doctors. The brain is a complex organ, and no one could really predict how code would interact with it. Visual information formatted to the brain well, but it took a while to refine the ability to actually navigate through the internet. Meanwhile, no one took viruses into account. Someone created a virus, and it made all the people with chips in them violent towards people without chips, and from our best estimates, that isn’t what it was supposed to do. However, because the tech people and the medical professionals never got the chip, they were some of the first and most important casualties. Tony Stark hadn’t gotten a chip, but his wife, Pepper, had. He’s Iron Man, but he didn’t want to hurt her, so she just. . . Strangled him to death. When she snapped out of it, she jumpstarted the work of quarantining the chipped to try and minimize the casualties. It still wasn’t fast enough for some people. Children, the elderly. . . A lot of the people deemed too weak to survive the surgery were also too weak to survive the attacks.”
“So I won’t be causing a paradox.”
“No, although I wouldn’t expect you to be able to slip into your old position in our universe.”
“I’m fine with that.” And with that, Tony stepped through the portal.
Their first task was, of course, to video call Pepper. Tony sat out of camera sight while Stephen started the call, not wanting to shock her immediately.
Pepper immediately perked up when she saw Stephen. “Stephen! It’s good to know you’re alive, it’s been months! Where were you?”
Stephen smiled. “Well, like I said, I went looking for people who would be able to read and reverse the code. I found someone, but Pepper. . . You need to not freak out. It’s Tony.”
Pepper started to tear up, but she managed a wet chuckle. “Of course our saviour would be Tony. He’s a genius in every universe, isn’t he?”
Stephen held up a hand, and Tony grabbed it before stepping on screen, so that Pepper would know what side to expect him on. “Hey Pep. Sorry it took me so long, but I have a solution. Do you need a minute, or are you good to talk business?”